


falling in love with a wind-up souvenir

by MissSpock



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrinette, Angst, F/M, LadyNoir - Freeform, Marichat, Well - Freeform, love square, marichat is basically just sin, mostly - Freeform, not that there's any sin here, so fun to play with this lol, this is actually really pure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 12:30:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7892383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSpock/pseuds/MissSpock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not as if she doesn’t know. It’s not as if she doesn’t see what he sees. It’s not as if she doesn’t know he sees a ghost—but who’s to say she isn’t too?</p><p>(“What’s wrong, M’la—Marinette?”)</p><p>And it’s wrong.  Oh god, it’s wrong.</p><p>(The window comes away beneath her hands, warm skin pressed against cool glass. She squeezes her eyes shut. Then she tugs him down from his perch, hands fisted into his collar so hard blood drains out of her knuckles, and presses her lips to his.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	falling in love with a wind-up souvenir

There’s something familiar about her. Something different.

He comes to the conclusion the first time he sees her.

Faint like smoke, like hazy Parisian mornings, it ebbs from her like an echo just beyond his grasp.

He can’t quite put his finger on it.

Something about the way she talks, perhaps, or in the way she moves around him, the way her body settles comfortably into the negative space created by his own, how it never has before.

(She’s easier around this him, easier around lithe limbs, emerald eyes and a feral grin.)

He’s a little baffled by her implicit trust. Marinette barely knows Chat Noir.  _ People _ barely know Chat Noir. 

The mask sits between him and the rest of the world. It is what it has to be. He’s a superhero, a celebrity, a faceless being whose sole existence is to provide protection. To the people of the world Chat Noir is not a man. He is a mask, and who would trust a mask?

(And yet.)

_ (And yet.) _

There is comfort in the way she moves, an ease with which she speaks, an almost  _ catlike _ grace that for some unknown reason absolutely fascinates him.

He bids her good night, but he comes back the next day. And the day after that.

 

* * *

 

Chat Noir is the  _ antithesis _ .

Her partner in crime (though that term is ironic) is loud, brash, flirtatious at all the wrong times—the opposite of everything Marinette thinks she likes.

But. 

She doesn’t know what she’s thinking when she allows him into her home,  _ Marinette’s _ home. Ladybug is used to hiding behind her mask. Now she can hide behind her own face, too.

_ (And then there is the second “but,” the swell of something inside her, the unnamed feeling that doesn’t matter, can’t matter, because she has Adrien, doesn’t she?) _

(Spoilers: She doesn’t.)

But  _ he’s _ always  _ there _ . The wrong him. 

The visits are casual. He comes to her window sometimes, for no reason. As simple as the fact that he just wants to see her. 

(She’s exhausted, really exhausted. Marinette doesn’t know she’s crying until wet flowers blossom on the back of her hand.)

It’s not as if she doesn’t know. It’s not as if she doesn’t see what he sees. It’s not as if she doesn’t know he sees a ghost—but who’s to say she isn’t too?

( _ “What’s wrong, M’la—Marinette?” _ )

And it’s wrong.  Oh god, it’s wrong.

( _ The window comes away beneath her hands, warm skin pressed against cool glass. She squeezes her eyes shut. Then she tugs him down from his perch, hands fisted into his collar so hard blood drains out of her knuckles, and presses her lips to his.) _

 

* * *

 

It’s not their idea of love.

No, it’s something less sinister than that, something less intentional. 

Something about him makes it easy to forget and something about her makes it harder to remember that this is a mistake.

They steal time.

At the end of the day, they kiss one another the way they want to kiss someone else. His fingers thread through Marinette’s hair (pigtails, like _ hers),  _ and when she draws away she brushes his bangs out of his eyes she doesn’t want to see (blonde, like  _ him). _

She doesn’t want him. And she knows he doesn’t want her.

(It spins out of control; they don’t know how it happens, but in retrospect, she thinks she should have expected.)

But they need each other. She needs his hands in her hair and he needs fingers brushing lightly over his forehead. They need the reminder, the pieces, the likenesses and the familiarity. They need the ghosts, because ghosts are all they can have.

They  _ need _ each other.

(Maybe that’s enough.)

 

* * *

 

  
_ (It isn’t.) _

_ (It really isn’t.) _

  
  


* * *

 

Can it be called fighting if there isn’t a relationship to begin with?

They have a routine.

There are days when she really does hate him. He behaves as flippantly around her as he does anywhere else. Chat Noir, infamous Chat Noir, always equipped with a witty one liner and a maybe less witty joke. He laughs it off like he always does, but there is coldness in his eyes.

Marinette bristles and puffs up her chest, turns red and shouts, because she is fire.

Then they don’t talk for a week, then they don’t talk at all, then he holds her when she needs to be held and she sits with him when no one else will.

Other days are better. Other days are laughter carried on the summer breeze in early mornings (too early for those crappy puns), him stealing her breakfast and falling out of the window when her alarm rings, pillow fights and tickle fights and lazy afternoons that waste away with the flicker of a movie. Days where it really feels like they’re just ordinary teenagers trying to feel, trying to understand what they feel.

The routine carries on almost too smoothly. They play their game of cat and mouse so well they forget it’s a game.

They say they love each other sometimes, just to taste the words on their tongues.

It doesn’t taste like how they think it should. It doesn’t  _ feel _ like how they think it should.

(Then there are those days that she pretends not to notice the way he looks at Ladybug like she’s the center of the world, pretends it doesn’t bother her, doesn’t bother  _ Marinette.) _

(And Adrien can’t quite look her straight in the eye nowadays.)

Why should any of this bother them? From the very beginning they knew this isn’t going to end well.   
  


* * *

 

 

“I can’t do this anymore,” she says, one day. It’s raining outside, but her eyes are dry.

“…Me neither.”

Words tumble from their lips but both of their masks are up. It’s easy. 

Neither know that the other is lying.

Neither know that the other is afraid.

And most important of all, neither know what the other is afraid  _ of. _

 

* * *

 

_ (“…Do you think it’s possible to love two people at once?”) _

_ (“…I don’t know.”) _

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so I've seen about six episodes of this show, and all of in french with barely any coherent subtitles. I think you can tell where I might be off when it comes to characterization? Sorry guys, here I am, writing fic for fandoms that I'm not technically in... :P It was a present for a friend. Hopefully it wasn't too bad?


End file.
